So in the absence of improved numbers, perhaps the most relevant development in 2013 is the tech industry’s move toward publicizing concern about a dearth of qualified talent — another factor indicating that Silicon Valley’s over-reliance on white and Asian males may not be sustainable.

While tech spokespeople have been happy to talk about how much they value diversity, in theory, a central fact remains: Data-driven, well-funded Silicon Valley companies still haven’t done much to back up the talk with results.

Beyond one-off corporate partnerships with minority-focused organizations and recruiting efforts with undisclosed budgets, it’s difficult to say what impact, if any, the diversity push during the last year actually had on the makeup of Silicon Valley’s workforce.

A central irony for Silicon Valley in 2013: Though the year could easily be deemed the year of Big Data, it’s a nagging lack of comprehensive workforce data that makes it impossible to evaluate just how stratified Silicon Valley has become — much less to measure any progress on diversity issues. Companies aren’t required to disclose the demographic makeup of their employees, leaving the public with isolated, caveat-filled reports that show Silicon Valley lagging behind the rest of the business world.

Missed opportunity

Amid the noise — a flood of diversity-themed events, long-winded media articles and promotional press releases on the topic of women and minorities in Silicon Valley — a lot did end up happening this year.

In March 2013, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg released her now-culturally-ingrained book on the workplace gender gap, “Lean In.”

The dearth of women and minorities also doesn’t only permeate white collar tech jobs. The number of women in cleantech jobs — covering everything from energy IT workers to electricians — is disproportionately low. Overall income for black and Hispanic Silicon Valley residents, we learned this year, also declined 18 percent and 5 percent, respectively, from 2009 to 2011.

If I were to guess, I’d say a lot of readers were looking for new jobs in 2013: Many of our most-read stories of the year had to do with perks packages, best-paying gigs, and where to find the region’s happiest employees.

The stories you also read the most: Anything about impactful, top CEOs (Yahoo exec Marissa Mayer and Tesla head Elon Musk were two of your favorites), and the fresh-faced up-and-comers you wanted to add to your Roledex.

Below, see the top 15 stories of the year, ranked by your clicks.

1. Our readers’ No. 1 pick this year was a look at Silicon Valley’s most successful women of 2013 – the leaders of giant tech firms, savvy entrepreneurs, top lawyers and execs in healthcare and education.Meet Silicon Valley’s most influential women here. (Note: This is an annual special, and if you have great candidates for next year, let us know.)

9. While many Silicon Valley employees enjoy crazy perks like free food or bikes, that doesn’t always mean they love their jobs. Our readers wanted to hear what companies are really the best places to work. Here employees ranked their companies, and we gave you the cream: “Bay Area’s Best Places to Work — See who topped the list.”

15. We found Silicon Valley’s young phenoms and gave you an inside view on how their brains work. (Note: Also an annual special, so feel free to nominate names for the next class.) “40 Under 40: All the winners revealed.”

Shana Lynch is Managing Editor at the Business Journal. Her phone number is 408.299.1831

The job market in technology is hot! Engineering, development, product management, sales and business development, these are hot roles in the tech sector and there’s a lot of competition by companies to attract and retain top talent these days.

Even if you aren’t looking for another job, you may be approached with another opportunity. Let’s say you really weren’t looking to make a move but you were polite on the phone, and next thing you know you’re curious about what you are hearing.

An initial phone interview led quickly to a face to face, and now you have an offer. It is an exciting opportunity with bleeding edge technology. You are motivated because of the new company’s work environment, culture, benefits, salary, location, perks, and such so before you know it you’ve accept the offer.

Shortly after you give notice, your manager makes a pitch for you to stay on and he makes you a sweeter offer than the new company. Oh geez, you are asking yourself “Should I stay or should I go?”

The Clash had it right, (paraphrasing) if you go there may be trouble, but if you stay it will be double. While it is flattering to be wanted, and it is validating to get competing and improving offers, what happens once the dust settles?

Most of the time, the work environment is going to suffer; the trust factor cannot be recovered. Your employer is now wary of your motives and your loyalty. When it comes time to build a new team for a mission critical product launch, will you be trusted to see it through? What happens if there is a change in fortunes at the company and a belt needs to be tightened, who do you think will be among the first laid off? Perhaps your work was critical at the time of your offer and the upper management felt you had to be kept to see it through. What then when the project is done, might the company’s loyalty wane like yours did? When it comes down to it, you kissed another girl and Susie is not going to forget it!

Another by-product of this bidding war occurs with your colleagues. Co-workers may know or suspect that you got some sweet deal to stay and they will probably resent you for it. Will your colleagues be supportive and collaborative if they question whether you are one of them? Might some employees try a similar move hoping to leverage an outside offer into better pay where they are, and whether successful or not the human dynamic is certainly going to be affected, and not likely in a positive way.

And guess what will happen if you stay after accepting the outside offer. You got it, that employer is going to blacklist you. The recruiter you worked with will never represent you again. And word will generally get around creating a negative perception.

But remember, even if you weren’t initially looking for another opportunity, you did get excited enough to go through a hiring process and accept an offer for good reasons. Perhaps you weren’t feeling appreciated, or you felt you deserved better pay. Maybe you needed a new challenge or work environment. Whatever the case may be, you can’t go back.

The great majority of professionals who accept a counteroffer to stay are gone within a year, whether of their own volition or being asked to leave. So don’t pick up that phone or be ready to honor your word. The answer is don’t take the counteroffer, no matter how sweet.

Founded in Silicon Valley in 1996, Redfish Technology is an award-winning talent acquisition firm specializing in high tech and clean tech sectors. Partnering with growth mode companies, small and large, Redfish staffs executive functions and builds out the teams below. The company provides services nationwide and has offices in Silicon Valley, the East Coast, and Sun Valley.

Beginning in 1984 as an invite-only event in California’s Silicon Valley, the TEDx phenomenon has grown to become a worldwide movement of public discussion and presentation. TED events the place to be seen if you want to be perceived as knowledgeable and interested, and will provide you with enough engaging small talk to last until next year’s conference. But, with TEDx conferences popping up everywhere, it can be hard to know which ones to attend and which ones to skip.

If you’re after a unique and insightful experience, here are the top five TED events that every TED devotee should make the pilgrimage to.

TED Long Beach

The original and, arguably, the best. The original TED event moved from Silicon Valley to Long Beach in order to accommodate increased audience interest, but will be moving to Vancouver, Canada in 2013. This is a series of talks for people who are interested in TED’s core vision: Technology, Education, Design. However, at $US7500 a ticket, the original TED talk is a major investment, even for its greatest devotees.

TEDx Broadway

The TEDx Broadway event discusses the future of New York’s premiere theatre district. The event aims to bring together the best of the best in theatre to consider the implications of falling ticket sales on the Great White Way, as well as the proliferation of musical theatre into other media. Performance is a topic close to the hearts of many A-list celebs, so if you’re in the mood to starspot, TEDx Broadway will not disappoint. Last year, star of the stage and screen, Neil Patrick Harris was one of the presenters.

TEDMED

TED’s medicine forum has a reputation for bringing the best minds in medicine together for three days in Washington D.C. The most interesting aspect of the conference, however, is the application process to attend. Every member of the audience has been deemed to be an important person in the field of medical research, so the people sitting in the stalls are often just as important as the people on stage. But, if you’re not an up-and-coming medical researcher: don’t worry. TEDMED is one of the few TED events that is wholly simulcast to institutions across the world free of charge.

TEDx Sydney

The interesting thing about TEDx Sydney is that it is one of the few TED events around the world that reflect a national opinion. While there are other TED events in Australia, none come close to the size of TEDx Sydney. Set on Sydney’s beautiful harbour inside the iconic Opera House, a trip to TEDx Sydney is a great idea for tourists and locals alike.

TEDx Boston

Boston is the central city to many of the US’s most prestigious universities. Harvard, Cambridge, MIT: they are all surrounding this otherwise rather dull city. But, what does that mean? It means that when an ideas juggernaut comes to town, the academic folk of Boston get pretty excited. If you are at TEDx to be intellectually challenged by some higher-level ideas, Boston is the event for you.

Frances Ward is a TEDx devotee from Sydney who loves watching TED to fill her mind with information on topics as diverse as business finance and neuroscience.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has stolen its identity, the suit claims, through its saturation marketing campaign for its new remote content syncing product named iCloud.

“Apple has a long and well-known history of knowingly and willfully treading on the trademark rights of others,” the suit claims, citing its legal fights with the Beatles over the name Apple and with Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) over the name iPhone.

The lawsuit was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court of Arizona. It seeks an injunction against Apple using the iCloud name and monetary compensation.

Days like this don’t happen often enough in this business. One of my clients published his first website today, and I was actually around to push the button when he went live.

I met Dr. Mike years ago. We were both in the same church band; in fact we were both bass players in the same church band. We rotated Sundays and it worked out well as there was another church requiring my services every other weekend. There was never a feeling of competition, and although we didn’t see each other all that often our relationship was friendly and we became “friends” on FaceBook and LinkedIn. After a few years the church and I were going in different directions musically, and philosophically. My Buddhist girlfriend (now wife) was tolerant of some of the egregious language of the Evangelical Christian Church (everybody is OK as long as they think exactly the way we do…) but not enthusiastic over spending our Sundays driving a half hour each direction to do so. They had found yet another bass player so we just drifted off.

Mike started Chiropractic school with a vengeance, and kissed his wife goodbye for a couple of years to become a slave to the classrooms and studies. After the rigorous course, and several panic attacks during exams, Mike was ready to hang up his shingle and announce his practice (again on FaceBook and LinkedIn) and I began to follow him. Oh the joys of social media, being re-connected with old friends.

Forgetting that age had crept up on me my back went out while engaged in some construction activity that should probably have been left for a man half my age. It took a few days for me to become convinced that it was not somehow going to miraculously work itself out, and would indeed require the intervention of a skilled practitioner. It was so bad that walking was almost out of the question, and ice and heat were required to merely sit in front of a football game on television.

Remembering our association, and the current status of Dr. Mike the Chiropractor, it was easy to recall my pleasant experiences with the service and call upon his expertise to alleviate my current condition. The only negative memory of Chiropractic being that my health plan sucks, and it can be a bit expensive out of pocket. This minor setback was alleviated after my first visit with our agreement to barter his services for mine as an internet marketing consultant. As it turns out, so was my back pain. In a matter of 3 weeks it was loose and relatively painless and the mobility returned to the point that noon 2 mile hikes were back in the picture.

Every visit to his office was accompanied by an hour or so of marketing discussions. We went over Facebook, Youtube, Hotmail, Blogs, google.com, Markets, Websites, Products, WordPress, Linkedin, youtube videos, and general integration into social media.

The past few visits he has come up to the office and we really got down with our website provider and started to create. His work is as outstanding on the site is it is at his practice. It is truly satisfying to have a client listen and take the advice that one works so hard to provide. At the suggestion of one of my associates, I have for some time, really not encouraged any of my clients to do any of their own work; it simply usually doesn’t get done.

Even with a newborn first child at home, Dr. Mike has written some 20 technical blogs revolving around healthcare and Chiropractic medicine. It was with great pride that this humble internet marketer was able to watch the birth of www.rogersonchiropractic.com. Well done Dr. Mike!

Facebook Inc. on Thursday launched the Open Compute Project to share technology from its first dedicated data center in Prineville, Ore.

Palo Alto-based Facebook said the technology used there “delivered a 38 percent increase in energy efficiency at 24 percent lower cost for Facebook, and the specifications and best practices behind those gains will now be available to companies across the industry.”

Jonathan Heiliger, vice president of technical operations, said Facebook and its development partners “invested tens of millions of dollars over the past two years to build upon industry specifications to create the most efficient computing infrastructure possible. These advancements are good for Facebook, but we think they could benefit all companies.”

Facebook is publishing technical specifications and mechanical CAD files for the Prineville data center’s servers, power supplies, server racks, battery backup systems and building design.The company will release the designs as open hardware, aiming to encourage industry-wide collaboration around best practices for data center and server technology.

A controversial January article from Daily Caller, which was picked up by Fox News, has been quietly scrubbed from both outlets’ websites. By Alex Kasprak – On 27 January 2017, the Daily Caller’s then-video editor Matt Raust penned a short piece (“Here’s A Reel Of Cars Plowing Through Protesters Trying To Block The Road”) that featured a compilation […] […]

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